Watching You: A Novel

Jenna could see him trundling down the hill from Melville Heights the next morning, his weird oil-slick hair curtaining his eyes, that look of pained disdain visible even from here. She waited by the bus stop in case he was going to get the bus, but he didn’t, he carried on out of the village, towards the city where his posh school must be. She followed behind him for a moment, practising her opening line over and over in her head, and then she increased her pace to catch up with him.

‘Freddie,’ she said.

He turned sharply at the sound of his name and then looked at her in utter shock. ‘Oh. Right. Hi.’

‘I was just thinking’, she said, ‘about what you were saying the other day. About that time in the Lake District. And I was there. Me and my mum and dad and my kid brother. I remember it.’

Freddie stopped walking and turned to face her. ‘Oh yes?’

‘I remember you all on the coach and I remember the woman coming out of nowhere and screaming at your dad.’

He nodded encouragingly but seemed to be having trouble forming a verbal response.

‘So,’ she said, ‘you said you wanted to talk about it? What was it you wanted to know exactly?’

‘It was …’ She saw a red veil creep up his face from his neck. ‘It was … Do you know what happened?’

‘No,’ she said. ‘No. I thought you might know? I mean, who was that woman?’

Freddie shrugged. He rubbed his chin with his fingers and seemed to be trying to look thoughtful, but just looked a little odd. ‘I don’t know. My father always maintained that she’d mistaken him for someone else. But I always had this … this feeling that there was something more to it. Something he didn’t want me to know.’

‘Like what?’

He shrugged. ‘I think I never really believed that he didn’t know her. It didn’t ring true.’

Jenna nodded.

‘How well do you remember it?’ he asked.

‘I remember it really well,’ she said. ‘It’s just one of those things; when you’re a kid, and you see adults being really angry, really aggressive, it sticks in your mind.’

‘Yes,’ he said. ‘Exactly.’

There followed a brief silence. Jenna felt that there was more to this conversation, something Freddie was holding back, but she wasn’t sure how to dig it out of him. They’d almost reached the turning for Jenna’s school.

‘Do you remember her saying viva?’ she asked in a rush.

Freddie stopped. ‘Yes,’ he replied. ‘Actually, I do.’

‘Can you remember her exact words?’

Freddie touched his chin again. ‘Something about how viva was her life, viva was her everything.’

‘What do you think viva was? Could it have been a person?’

Freddie shrugged. ‘I always assumed it was.’

Jenna saw a familiar figure appearing at the bottom of the road. It was Bess. She was on her own. She turned to Freddie, an unplanned question suddenly burning at the tip of her tongue. ‘Do you like your dad?’

‘What?’

‘Your dad? Do you get on with him? Is he an OK dad?

‘He’s all right.’

‘Is he nice to you?’

‘Yes,’ he said. ‘He’s pretty nice to me. Much nicer than I am to him.’

‘You’re not nice to him?’

‘No. Not really. He’s kind of a dick. Well, not a dick, but, you know, everyone thinks he’s so amazing. And I live with him and I see him all the time and I know he’s not that amazing and sometimes he’s really hard to live with and moody and he can be really—’ He stopped and she saw his gaze fall hard to the ground. ‘He can just be difficult. But basically, he’s fine.’

‘Do you think your dad would … would he ever …?’ She stopped. She wanted to ask him about Mr Fitzwilliam, about his taste for young girls. She wanted to know if her best friend was in danger of being manipulated or not. But she couldn’t. Of course she couldn’t. This was his son.

‘Nothing,’ she said, stopping at the crossroads. ‘Look, I’m going to wait for my friend to catch me up so you should go ahead. I’ll see you around, OK?’

Freddie looked flummoxed for a moment, as though there was something else he wanted to say. Then he nodded and said, ‘Yeah. Cool. I’ll see you around.’

She watched him loping off towards the city and sighed. She’d hoped that Freddie Fitzwilliam might have offered up a nugget of insight into his dad, something that might make sense of her strange dislike of him, of her mother’s bizarre obsession with him, of the oddness she felt about him and Bess. But she was none the wiser.

She took a deep breath, turned on the spot and waited for Bess to catch up.

‘Hey,’ she said as Bess came alongside. ‘You OK?’

‘Yeah. I’m good,’ Bess said. ‘Who was that you were talking to?’ She jutted her chin towards the road into the city.

‘Just some boy,’ Jenna replied, ‘from a private school.’

‘Why were you talking to him?’

She shrugged. ‘Just was.’

They stood at the pedestrian crossing, waiting for the red man to turn green. ‘You around at lunchtime?’ Jenna asked awkwardly as the light changed and they started across the road.

‘Yeah,’ said Bess. ‘I guess so.’

‘Want to have lunch?’

‘Sure,’ said Bess.

Mr Fitzwilliam was stationed at the door. He eyed them walking in together and said, ‘Miss Ridley! Miss Tripp! Good morning!’

‘Morning, sir,’ said Bess, her comportment shifting immediately from awkward and monosyllabic to gushing and cute.

Jenna threw him a tight smile and passed him as quickly as she could without running.

She found Bess in the home room at lunchtime. She was sitting alone, doing her Spanish homework. She looked up when Jenna walked in and gave her an uncertain smile. ‘Hi.’

‘Hi,’ said Jenna. She glanced down at Bess’s homework. ‘Shit,’ she said, ‘Didn’t you do that?’

‘No. Forgot.’

‘But there’s, like, loads. You’ll never get it all done.’

‘I know,’ Bess said. ‘I’m going to pretend my printer broke down halfway through printing it out.’

‘Isn’t that what you said last time?’

Bess looked up at her uncertainly. ‘That was physics, wasn’t it?’

‘No,’ said Jenna. ‘It was Spanish. Definitely.’

‘Shit,’ said Bess. ‘Well, what shall I say then?’

Jenna contained a smile. After almost a week of not talking, they’d slipped back into their traditional roles in under a minute.

‘I dunno. Maybe you could just hand it in and when he asks where the rest is you could just act all surprised and say you thought it didn’t seem like that much, maybe the rest of it got muddled up with some other papers. Something like that. Or’ – she smiled – ‘you could just let me help and do it all?’

Bess smiled back. ‘Yes. Option two. Please.’

Jenna laughed and sat down next to Bess.

‘You not eating?’ she asked Bess, unzipping her lunch bag and taking out a chicken and pasta salad. She glanced at the nutritional information. Six hundred and eighty-two calories. God, she thought, how could salad have so many calories in it?

‘No,’ said Bess. ‘I’m trying to skip lunch this week.’

‘Why?’

‘Because I’m getting fat.’

Jenna grimaced. ‘Don’t be so fucking stupid.’

‘I am,’ said Bess, leaning back to show her the waistband of her school skirt. ‘Look. Fatty McFatfat.’

Jenna rolled her eyes. ‘That’s just water retention, you dick. You’re not fat. Here.’ She unzipped her bag again and pulled out a spoon. ‘Share this salad with me. It’s way too fattening for me to eat it all.’

Bess sighed and smiled and took the spoon from Jenna. ‘OK then,’ she said, digging it straight into the pasta and wolfing it down.

For half an hour they shared the pasta and worked through Bess’s Spanish homework. Then, as the clock ran down towards the end of lunchtime, Jenna took a deep breath and said, ‘Saw you were over in Lissenden on Friday night.’

Bess looked up at her. ‘Yeah,’ she said. ‘We were at Ruby’s cousin’s place.’

‘Jed?’ said Jenna.

‘Yes,’ said Bess. ‘Jed. You been stalkin’ me?’

‘No, just saw it on Snapchat. Was it good?’

‘Yeah. It was fun.’

‘Is he fit?’

‘Yeah. He’s fit. But he’s really annoying? Thinks he’s such a clown. You know, you just want to say: Be yourself. Stop being like this professional buffoon. Then maybe some girls might like you. ’Cos you’re properly fit.’

Jenna smiled. She didn’t care too much about Jed and she was running out of time to ask the question she really wanted to ask. ‘I saw you get a taxi back. On Snap Maps.’

‘Oh my God, you have so been stalking me!’

She shook her head. ‘When you didn’t get out of the taxi I came to find you. I thought you were being, like, raped on the back seat or something.’

‘No way.’

‘And when I came out, I saw you over the way. Talking to Mr Fitzwilliam.’ She paused and watched her friend’s reaction. ‘What was that all about?’

‘Oh God, yeah, that! I got out the taxi and he was just sort of there. Said he was on his way to the all-night shop.’

‘Oh, right. And what were you talking about?’

‘Just – stuff. You know.’

‘No,’ said Jenna. ‘Tell me.’

Bess laughed. ‘There’s nothing to tell!’ she said. ‘Just, you know, where’ve you been, how’re you doing sort of thing.’

‘Were you talking about my mum?’

‘No.’

‘Do you swear?’

‘I totally swear. We just chatted, like about boring stuff.’

‘Didn’t it feel sort of weird though?’ she asked.

‘No,’ said Bess. ‘Why should it feel weird?’

‘Because he’s our head teacher. And he’s a man. And he’s old. And it was the middle of the night. Didn’t it feel awkward?’

Bess shook her head. ‘No,’ she said, a smile spreading across her face. ‘No, it didn’t feel awkward. It felt really nice.’

Jenna frowned. ‘What’s going on with you and him, Bess?’ she hissed.

‘Going on?’

‘Yes. Is he, you know, trying to groom you or something?’

The minute she said it she knew it was the wrong line to take. Bess turned and stared at her. ‘Oh my God, Jen,’ she said. ‘Are you serious?’

‘I just don’t get it,’ she said. ‘I don’t get what you see in him. I don’t get why you like him. I think he’s really dodgy.’

‘He so is not dodgy. God. He’s the total opposite of dodgy. He’s kind and caring and nice. I swear. He’s just the nicest, nicest man in the whole world. Please, Jen,’ she said, holding her hands in hers, ‘please don’t turn into your mum.’

Jenna pulled her hands from Bess’s and then pushed back her chair so hard and so fast that it nearly fell over. She stalked from the room, slamming the door shut behind her.